Let the ball roll
"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain, but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wants to pursue that path, let the ball roll."This was the respose yesterday from Javad Vaeedi, an Iranian negotiator, to the US suggestion that the Iranian nuclear issue be taken up by the United Nations Security Council.
What exactly the Iranians mean by this remark is not known; there are the obvious violent implications, but "harm and pain" can cover a lot of ground. As discussed in this blog elsewhere (here and here), the establishment of an Iranian oil Bourse has considerable economic implications for the US but so does more subtle manipulation of oil production rates.
With the threat of sanctions always a possibility and oil prices already at near record highs, this really does have the potential to split the Security Council. Iran produces about 40% of the amount of crude oil per day as Saudi Arabia, and an oil-hungry world is going to be unwilling to lose that. Countries like China and Japan may have no choice but to vote against or "work around" sanctions, while other nations like India will likely lobby hard against them as well.
It is going to be interesting to see if the one-note American foreign policy can work itself out of this bind. They are in no shape to go to war with Iran, still being bogged down in Iraq, and nothing short of a nuclear exchange is going to bring too many other western countries in with them. Not in a meaningfull way, anyway.
Knowing this, the Iranians have to feel that they are playing a pretty strong hand; hence remarks like the one noted above. Having said that, they too can't openly provoke the West.
The real question is who stands to lose more from a diplomatic battle of attrition?
